FITNESS Strength training – Part 1

Do you know your strength?


Personal Trainer
Paul O'Brien

Strength training
Part 1
Whether you are a sports enthusiast or a weekend warrior along for the fun, your body will benefit from a strength training programme. Not to mention your mind.
Strength can be defined as the ability of your muscles to exert force against a resistance. This resistance may be in the form of exterior objects, such as weights, another person or a piano. Or the resistance can be provided by your own body, as in body-weight training.
That’s the definition. However, the important question concerns the type of strength you are looking to develop. This falls into a few different categories. Maximum strength refers to the greatest force that can be generated during a single maximum muscular contraction – the maximum weight you can lift once. Elastic strength refers to the ability to overcome a resistance with a fast muscular contraction. Strength endurance refers to the ability to generate force repetitively.
Clearly from these definitions, strength training is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. For example, maximum strength would be vital for a power lifter or wrestler and should be an integral part of their training programme. They would also have some use for elastic strength, but would gain little from working on strength endurance. A footballer on the other hand would focus much more on elastic strength and strength endurance, as these would relate more closely to the demands of the sport. However, a footballer who focused his training on maximum strength would bulk up too much and adversely affect his performance.
Therefore, the first thing to look at when starting out on a strength training programme is your particular sport. What are the strength demands of the sport? Once you establish this, choosing a training programme is much easier. The next consideration should be your experience level. Have you undertaken a strength training programme before? What is your injury history? If you are new to strength training, or rehabilitating from injury, seeking the advice of a trainer would be well advised. A good trainer will take your particular circumstances into account, the demands of your sport and will also test you for functional weakness. This will help you establish a strong foundation for your strength training programme and critically, help you to reduce your injury risk.
To increase strength, a muscle must be worked beyond its normal limits. In training speak this is known as ‘overload’. However, overload must be carefully managed to ensure effectiveness and avoid injury. In short, the overload must be based upon your current strength levels (testing) and progressive (programming) to be effective. Again, this is where a trainer comes in. If you are unsure about how to structure and progress your programme, seeking advice is the only sensible solution.
In my next article, we’ll look at ways of developing the different types of strength.

Paul O’Brien is a personal trainer and life coach based in Westport.